


this is the road to ruin, and we're starting at the end

by everybodylies



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M, it says major character death but don't worry not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodylies/pseuds/everybodylies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“How long was I out?” he asks as two men come into focus above him.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Um…” says the one with long hair and sunken eyes, “uh… s-seven years, two months.”</em>
</p><p>The benefits to having a synthetic partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the road to ruin, and we're starting at the end

calibrating…  
calibrating…  
calibrating…

Start.

 

He opens his eyes, gasps for air. Sweet, sweet, air. There hadn’t been any on the space station. Technically, he didn’t need to breathe, but he’d missed its comforting weight, the feeling of it rushing in and out of his body.

“How long was I out?” he asks as two men come into focus above him.

“Um…” says the one with long hair and sunken eyes, “uh… s-seven years, two months.”

Seven years! He wonders how much has changed. If those MXs were still replacing him. He sits up, examines his surroundings, his gaze ultimately landing on the man to his left.

His sensors quickly identify the man. “Detective John Kennex. I’m Dorian,” he says, extending a hand. “How are you? Your record is outstanding.” He takes a moment to ponder the expression on the man’s face. It’s not one that’s in his database, too complex, perhaps: raised eyebrows, clenched jaw, and eyes cloudy.

The detective doesn’t respond, merely stares at him, or, rather, stares through him.

“Detective?”

“Huh? Oh,” the detective mutters, completely ignoring Dorian’s outstretched hand, “update your files. We’ve got a case. Meet me in the lobby.”

Dorian watches him go, then turns around to the other man and identifies him as Rudy Lom. “What’s his problem?”

Rudy shrugs. “He… had a bad week.”

Dorian calculates an 89.34 % chance that Rudy is deliberately hiding information from him, but he doesn’t push it.

* * *

“So what do I call you?” Dorian asks idly as he stares out the car window.

John pauses for a very, very long time, and then says, “Detective.”

Dorian feels slighted, but shrugs it off, figuring he’ll work his way up to “John” in time. “I updated my files, like you told me to.”

“Congratulations.”

Dorian ignores his partner’s sarcasm. “I found that I couldn’t access your files from the past seven years. They have restricted access.”

“So?”

“So, what’s the deal, man? You some kind of secret agent? What kind of exciting things have you done that I’m not allowed to know about?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you that, would I?”

“Okay, don’t tell me, that’s alright. I’ll figure it out eventually.” He sighs happily. “Well, Detective, this sure beats repairing thermal insulation tiles on the CNA Space Station.”

John is silent for the rest of the drive.

* * *

Detective Stahl briefs them as she leads them to the crime scene.

“… assailants then drove away in a white, unmarked van. The techies are acquiring the video footage as we speak,” she finishes.

“Who was the first officer on the scene?” John asks.

Stahl points to a tall woman sitting on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. “That’s her. Anything else? I’ll be talking to one of the witnesses over there if you need anything.” She turns to Dorian and smiles at him. “Hi Dorian.”

He smiles back and offers his hand. “Hi Detective Stahl. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, yes, sorry,” Stahl says, shaking his hand awkwardly, “er, nice to meet you, too, Dorian.”

He elbows John in the ribs after Stahl departs. “Did you see that? I think she likes me,” he says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come on, man. Did you see the way she smiled at me?”

“She smiles at everyone.”

“Oh, do I detect a bit of jealousy?”

“Jealous?” John scoffs. “Of you? No way.”

“Hm, she is pretty nice to you, too. But my facial-attractiveness sensor tells me that she is way out of your league.”

Finally, weakly, John smiles. “You have no such sensor.”

“How would you know?”

* * *

“Detective, a word outside?”

John looks up from his brutal interrogation. “Whatever,” he grunts, as Dorian holds the door open, and John walks out. They stand outside the interrogation room, out of earshot.

“I think you’ve misinterpreted the witness’s intentions.”

John raises his eyebrows. “Oh, really? How?”

“You think she’s not telling you anything because she is working with the criminals. But I think she’s scared of them. Maybe they’ve threatened someone she cares about.”

Dorian readies himself for an argument, but finds that John simply nods and says, “Alright.”

“You trust me?” Dorian asks, surprised. Most people did not trust androids with matters like these. Numbers, yes, but emotions? No way.

Shrugging, John replies, “Why not? You were made to feel, weren’t you?”

John reenters the interrogation room, and Dorian watches as he acquires the necessary information within five minutes.

* * *

Dorian waits at John’s desk as John drops off the finished case file in the captain’s office. John returns eventually, hands in pockets, eyes turned to the floor. Seeing as Dorian has nothing else to do other than return to his charging station, he waits for John to say something.

“So, uh, you hungry?” John asks after a moment.

“You are aware that I don’t eat,” Dorian replies.

John nods. “I am,” he replies, almost warmly. “I meant… you know. Anyway, noodles?”

“Sure, man.”

Strangely enough, John doesn’t respond to Dorian’s attempts at conversation the entire night. Dorian figures the man is just lonely.

* * *

“Who was John’s partner before me?” Dorian asks Rudy one night, as he’s closing down the lab.

“Er, it was Detective Martin Pelham, wasn’t it?”

Rudy’s steady heartbeat says that he’s telling the truth, but it doesn’t make sense. Pelham died over four years ago. Who had been John’s partner in the meantime?

“Are you sure?”

Rudy holds his hands up, palms facing out. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. I don’t keep track of all this information. I have my own work to do, you know. I’m busy. I have things to do.” He looks at Dorian and shrugs. “But in the past couple of years, the only partners he’s had have been Pelham and you. Why do you ask?”

Dorian frowns and looks at the wall. “I don’t understand him. He acts like he doesn’t like me, but it’s been two months now, and he hasn’t put in a request for a new partner. He actually invites me out to noodles, even though he doesn’t seem to enjoy it. I make all these jokes, but he only laughs at a fraction of them, and I know he finds them humorous. And the way he looks at me, it’s… strange.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” advises Rudy, who clearly hasn’t listened. “Detective Kennex… he’s been through a lot. Give him some time, and I’m sure things will go back to normal. Now, I’ve gotta go, Dorian. Good night.”

“What do you mean ‘back to normal?’” Dorian asks, but Rudy has already walked away.

* * *

Dorian hasn’t gotten his new partner entirely figured out yet, so when he finds the man’s apartment door completely unlocked, he isn’t sure whether it’s due to arrogance, laziness, or poor attention to detail. Nevertheless, he smirks as he turns the knob. He walks straight in and finds John in boxers and a tank top, sprawled on the couch without his artificial leg, a controller in his hand and a video game on the television screen.

John freezes for a second before he realizes who it is. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? It’s our day off.”

“I… didn’t know what to do.”

“Well, you’ve been asleep for fou— _seven_ years,” John says, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t you go walk around? Experience the world. Experience humanity.”

“It’s no fun to do alone.”

John turns his attention back to the television. Dorian identifies it as an old game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 5, to be precise. He notes that John chooses to fill his days that are not already filled with guns and violence with virtual guns and violence.

John’s playing one of the levels that provides the players with backup in the form of fellow soldiers controlled by the game. The AI wasn’t too advanced back then, Dorian recalls from his files. Allied soldiers basically just acted as human shields for the player.

“Call Stahl or something. She’ll walk around with you.”

Stahl is great, nice, but Dorian wishes he had the words to describe the bizarre way he feels drawn to his sarcastic, insubordinate, sloppy partner. Perhaps he needs to update his dictionary.

Dorian doesn’t respond, merely watches as John plays. A minute later, one of the AIs go down, and John sighs and restarts the level.

“You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Dorian says. “You get the same amount of points regardless of how many men you get to the end. It doesn’t matter to the game.”

John grunts. “It’s how I play,” he says, after a while.

Dorian watches as John plays the same level, over and over again, with such a lost, pathetic look on his face, pushing his soldiers out of the way, diving in front of them. Dorian can only watch this self-imposed misery and frustration for so long before he decides that it needs to stop. He taps into the wireless frequency of the television as he jumps over the back of the sofa and lands next to John, snatching the spare controller from the coffee table.

“Wha—”

The screen changes to a brightly colored cartoon menu. “Come on, man. We’re playing Sonic.”

* * *

They’re out for their usual John eats noodles and stares intently at the table while Dorian sits (im)patiently thing, when Dorian gets tired of the whole charade.

“I figured out what you and the rest of the department have been hiding from me,” Dorian says.

John chuckles sourly. “Oh, really,” he says, skeptical, “and what’s that?”

“I can’t access your files, but everyone else can. There’s something in there that only I am not allowed to read. Detective Stahl, Captain Maldonado, they all smile at me, talk to me like they know me already. And you. You don’t treat me like a synthetic, you treat me like a human. Not nicely, but… like a human.”

John doesn’t respond.

“How long was I your partner before I…” Dorian struggles to find the words. “… Before?”

John finally turns to look at him, but, even then, not really. “Three years.”

Dorian whistles. He hadn’t imagined it could be that long. All those lost moments.

“We were ambushed by the Syndicate in this abandoned warehouse. Just you and me. You had my back, like you always did. Someone threw a grenade, we noticed too late. You idiot, you threw yourself on top of it.”

Dorian was programmed to always put human lives above his, but the way John described the sacrifice made it sound almost… noble.

“There wasn’t much of you left. I brought Rudy as much as I could, but there was nothing to do. Your entire head was disintegrated, I think.”

Dorian fakes a gasp. “No, not the face! This precious thing?”

John sighs and shakes his head, the tiniest smile playing at his lips, and Dorian thinks about that little spark that jumps in his chest.

“What a shame, right? Anyway, I told Rudy to use as much of your original wiring as possible, but I think he just started from scratch. Why work with scorched ashes when you have a dozen identical bodies in storage? After the CNA Space Station decommissioned you, they spent around four years saving your memory in the database for research purposes. We called them up and Rudy uploaded their save file into your new body. And then we woke you up, good as new.”

“You didn’t seem very happy about it,” Dorian points out. “Still don’t, actually.”

“Yeah, well, it’s complicated. I liked the way things were. I liked… the way things were going.”

Dorian is silent for a moment as he thinks about words left unsaid.

“I feel like you don’t want me as your partner,” he says eventually.

“I do, but I don’t,” John says, shrugging, shaking his head, and looking all-around confused. “I like having you around, but… you’re not him. It’s weird.”

“I am him. Basically. All the ones and zeros in the same place.”

John just shrugs again.

“Sentimentality,” Dorian sighs thoughtfully. “The attachment of meaning to insignificant differences. It’s one of the more complex human emotions, but I was programmed to experience it as well—”

“Oh, I know all about that,” John says, eyes crinkling. “For one, there was that time I threw away your favorite pen, and you wanted me to dig through an entire dumpster to get it back for you.”

“… Did you?”

John bites his lip and looks away. He doesn't say anything.

“What I want to say, John, is… I understand. You lost your partner. And while I may share his face and his original programming, I was not there for everything that you two experienced together, and I was not the first, and that means something. You must grieve, and I understand.”

“You were always good at that, you know. Understanding.”

“But it’s been months, man. And you’ve just been wallowing in sadness and self-pity, when you’ve got a perfectly good second chance right here. I am not your first Dorian, and I probably won’t be your last, but you gotta make the best of the time you got, am I right? There are a lot of people who don’t get the same second chances as you do.”

John slurps up a noodle as he stares at Dorian.

“I’m not rushing you or anything, man,” Dorian adds quickly. “I get it. But I want you to be happy.”

“You still care? After I’ve been acting strange all this time? I think I was a lot nicer to you the first time ‘round.”

Dorian shrugs.

“It’s probably because of my dashing good looks,” John continues. “I know you just love this jawline.”

“I’m sorry, John, but my facial-attractiveness sensor does not lie,” Dorian quips, feeling lighter already, “and you are a solid three out of ten.”

John sticks out his tongue, covered in food particles, and Dorian smiles.

* * *

“John’s right: I didn’t save much,” Rudy had said absentmindedly, as he concentrated on the MX head he was holding in his hands. “I only threw in some of your old wiring out of respect for his wishes. I think the joints in your legs are original. Some of the chips in your upper spine. Oh, and the fingers on your right hand.”

Dorian stares at his hand during dinner at John’s apartment, and John wiggles his chopsticks in his face.

“What’s up with you?”

“These fingers are original,” Dorian mutters, holding them up.

John makes an exaggerated grimace, trying to hide a smile. “Get those away from me. The Dorian before you was a real prick, to be honest. I like you much better.”

Dorian kisses John two days later, long and slow, in the back of an ambulance, and thinks, _No wonder_.

* * *

“About what you said before: that you were not my first Dorian and you were probably not going to be my last. I was too distracted at the time and it flew right over my head, but I realized what you were saying. And I want you to know, Dorian, that if you do _anything_ to make it so that you are not my last Dorian, I swear to God, I _will_ kill you.”

“You’ll kill me after I die. Scary.”

“I swear, Dorian…”

* * *

calibrating…  
calibrating…  
calibrating…

Start.

 

He opens his eyes, gasps for air. Sweet, sweet, air. There hadn’t been any on the space station. Technically, he didn’t need to breathe, but he’d missed its comforting weight, the feeling of it rushing in and out of his body.

“How long was I out?” he asks as two men come into focus above him.

“This time” says the one with long hair and sunken eyes, “seven years, eight months.”

Seven years! He wonders how much has changed. If those MXs were still replacing him. He sits up, examines his surroundings, his gaze ultimately landing on the man to his left.

His sensors quickly identify the man. “Detective John Kennex. I’m Dorian—“

“Hi, Dorian,” Kennex interrupts, an odd little smile on the man’s face. “Before we start this whole thing off again, I’d like get some things on the record.”

_… Again?_

“First off, I hate you. You and your stupid face and the stupid things that you choose to do. Second, I don’t want to do this forever. I _could_ do this forever, if I had to, but it’s annoying and it messes with my head. So unless you shape up your act, we might just have to retire you to some nice home out in the country.”

“I’m… confused, Detective.”

“Good. You always talk less when you’re confused.” The man takes Dorian’s hand. “And call me John.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, thoughts? Compliments? Complaints? I hope you liked it!


End file.
